Stan speaks!! Reaction from midweek and early news for the NLD

Forgive the exuberant start to the post, but Stan is no longer silent. Silence is no longer an effective word to prefix his name, we now need a new one. Super Stan? Slightly conversational Stan? Hmm… we’ll probably have to keep on thinking about that one.

Anyway, spoken he has and it’s an interesting read. A really positive interview, he talks about Arsene Wenger, the future for Arsenal, spending money, why he was attracted to Arsenal and an indirect comparison to the likes of Alisher Usmanov. Really, really, really worth a read. Really. Read.

I said I had a few worries about him recently, but by and large his statements have soothed my worries. I said one of the things I was worried about were concerns about the future of the Arsenal Fanshare, and there wasn’t much about that, but it wasn’t really the kind of in-depth interview where you would expect something like the Fanshare to come up.

Aaron Ramsey spoke after the match about the importance of keeping this momentum going into this weekend’s match and was rather taken aback, unsurprisingly, by the idea that we were going into the match as underdogs.

News

A bit of early injury news seeping out of London Colney then, Yossi Benayoun could feature after returning to training, but Sebastian Squillaci won’t feature as he’s not match-fit. Johan Djourou will miss out while Walcott, Koscielny and Gervinho will all have late fitness tests, with Walcott the most likely to feature. That could well see Alex Song playing in defence again.

I think the bosses’ press conference is today, but his pre-match interview is already up so you can watch that, as well as other interviews, right here.

Tony Adams has carried on the ex-Arsenal tradition of slagging off the current side by saying that Robin Van Persie has nobody to back him up in the showers. Or something like that. I don’t really get that, I’m pretty sure that the likes of Vermaelen, Szczesny, Wilshere, Frimpong etc. would shut someone up if they were ‘giving Robin some chat’.

As expected, the media is already hailing Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain as ‘England’s saviour’ and what-not, and Jamie Sanderson has been speaking about how he’s progressed and what the future holds for the young midfielder. He’s also been speaking about young defender Martin Angha who has been training with the big boys in recent weeks, a very good prospect who is one of my favourites amongst the young defenders at the club. Could be a name to remember.

Right, that’s it for now. A preview tomorrow, as well as Wenger’s presser, the full team news and likely line-ups me thinks. As always, you can find me on twitter @SavageGooner and you can ‘like us’ on facebook.